The UN put two of its senior officials on special leave on Tuesday following a scathing report on safety precautions before the deadly August bombing of UN offices in Baghdad.
The two were Tun Myat of Myanmar, the global UN security coordinator, and Ramiro Lopes da Silva of Portugal.
Lopes da Silva has been the acting head of mission in Iraq since the Aug. 19 attack on the organization's headquarters that killed 22 staff and visitors, including the head of the operation, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric de la Riviere said both men had asked to be relieved of their duties while a new four-member team appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan determines "accountability at all managerial levels at headquarters and in the field" for the security failures.
But other UN officials said they had no choice.
"Accordingly, the secretary-general has decided that they will take special leave until mid-January, while remaining available to the team to provide information," Dujarric said.
During this period, American Catherine Bertini, the UN undersecretary-general for management, takes charge of security.
Annan, in a letter to UN staff on Friday, pledged to address "systematic failures" in the world body's security system to ensure that they were not repeated.
He was responding to a chilling report on Oct. 22 from an independent panel, headed by Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, who probed the August suicide bombing of the UN offices in Baghdad.
The panel's report said the UN security system was so "dysfunctional" and "sloppy" that it probably cost lives. Deficiencies included a lack of knowing how many foreign staff were in Iraq, a delay in installing shatterproof glass and a rejection of US military protection without making alternate arrangements.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese